


in dreams alone

by secondreckoning



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Blood and Injury, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Sex, F/F, Slow Burn, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-06-01 07:09:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15137843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondreckoning/pseuds/secondreckoning
Summary: In a world where people share dreams with their soul-mates, Angela, a weary trauma surgeon, walks her dreams alone. Nearing forty, she believes she’s simply not one meant for a soul-mate until vivid visions of Egypt begin to brighten her nights.





	1. without a soul-mate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for alcohol/drinking and heavy blood/gore mentions.
> 
> Inspired by [this prompt](http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/174233416059/imagine-you-otp-meeting-every-night-in-their).

Angela Ziegler is without a soul-mate.

If she had a soul-mate, she would see her in her own dreams. They would walk them together. She would text home and arrange dream-dates when she slipped in naps between cases, between patients, as the other on-call doctors did.

Instead of soul-mates, a long line of bodies fills her dreams. Gunfire, the endless line of the wounded, and her own slow, inadequate hands. (Why must they be _so_ slow? _So_ inadequate?) Sterile gloves slick with blood shake over soldiers and worse: civilians. Fathers on their way to work. Errant children in the wrong place at the wrong time. And some simply sick folks with nowhere else to turn but the hospital.

The hospital _over there_.

In her dreams, her hands shake. In her dreams, her patients lay upon the gurney or sand cement or surgical table or whatever surface is available and they die as her hands shake over them. Her hands shake and her stitches never close wounds or break open, and the light stutters out at the wrong time, and every time her slow, inadequate, trembling hands reach for supplies they dwindle. Or disappear. Or medical tape turns into scotch tape. Or the surgical stapler shrinks into a palm-sized stationery stapler. Or suture kits morph into sewing kits. She grabs them anyway. She stitches with thread. She loops the tape around and around to hold fast a woman's wounded arm. She pinches skin together with the same small clear orange plastic stapler she kept in her high school binders to pinch together assignments.

In her dreams, she tells herself:

_Keep going._

_Better than nothing._

_Better than nothing._

Out there, in the field, an orange school stapler is better than nothing. If it works, it's better than nothing. Consequences be damned. Consequences are for later. A scarred survivor is better than a corpse. A stapler is better than bare hands.

And she was better than nothing.

Right?

***

But she's no longer _over there_. She's back at the hospital in Vancouver where she spent her years as a surgical resident. A level-one trauma centre. As one of the trauma surgeons, she spends seventy-two hours on call within the walls of the hospital. Seventy-two hours bracing for the whirlwind of patients blowing through the doors when a call comes in.

Car crash victims: she pulls glass from the depths of a person where glass should never be, removes a kidney with no hope of repair. At some point, someone from up in plastics will clean the worst of the lacerations up.

The unfortunate and elderly: all sorts of broken things from slips and falls. Afterwards, she'll spend her next free hour or two ranting to Emily: Why aren't the home care systems better? Why doesn't the government spend more subsidizing home care nurses? Why aren't these jobs revered? Why are we patching up something preventable? Why aren't we doing _better_?

Then there's the spurts of violence: bar fights, street violence, muggings. More unfortunates in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone takes a knife and splits the skin of another human on purpose — fuelled by adrenaline and panic or rage, but still on purpose — and she ties a scrub cap over her blond hair and snaps gloves over her practised hands and tries — oh, does she _try_ — to set them to rights. Some days, she's not enough. Some days, as soon as her shift's over, she drops herself on her couch and lies there. She lies there, staring up at the fan-comb pattern on the ceiling of her apartment, and talks herself around to the horrible truth: she was not enough because no one would be enough. Some patients are simply _too much_. Too much blood gone, too much damage inflicted.

Other days, the paramedics will cart a man in. Another one in the wrong place at the wrong time. And he'll come in with a knife buried in his chest, the tip embedded in the heart wall. And the beautiful, wondrous muscular organ that is the heart will hold the tip in place, and the man will keep most of his blood, and he'll go home two days later.

Mostly, though, it's the former.

 ***

Today's case: two hit and run victims. Cyclists. One man's leg is torn from ankle to knee, his calf open to the unkindness of the world. It's a superficial wound. Emily, the surgical resident, stitches him up, discharges him, and sets him up in the waiting room.

The second man caught the full impact of a red minivan with his torso. He is conscious when the paramedics wheel him in. When she leans over him, he asks first for the other man and then says, "My ribs. I think I broke my ribs."

Oh, she sees, he _has_ , and they are painful and the very least of his worries.

So she stands elbow deep in the mess of his abdomen and works through loops of unsalvageable intestines. Loop upon loop, length upon length. Is there any surviving bowel? Is any of it undamaged? Can she do this?

( _Is she enough?_ )

Angela steps back and heaves out a breath, her face tipped heavenward. A nurse dabs perspiration from her brow. She mostly — _mostly_ — keeps her faith to medicine. But there are days her faith short-circuits.

 _She_ is the medicine, and she does not place much faith in herself.

"Ange," the orthopedic surgeon says. "Step out a moment and update the family." She's her senior by no small number of years, and she doesn't look up from setting the patient's femur to rights when she says it.

So Angela strips off her surgical gown, her mask, her scrub cap. All her barriers against the inevitable gore and the patient's protection from any contamination she might carry. She scrubs her hands raw — the only way they are well and truly clean — and splashes water on her face. Before she dabs the remainder off, some drips onto the neck of her scrubs.

What she can't scrub off is the stink of the operating theatre. Burnt flesh, the patient's ripe insides, and her own desperation.

Expression schooled into neutrality, she approaches the waiting room. The first man recognizes her. He shifts to stand, pressing the burden of his weight into the arms of the waiting room chair. Angela ducks down beside him instead.

He's talking before she reaches him.

"I know you probably can't tell me much, we've only known each other for a week, but his sister's on the way, and she likes me, I met her yesterday, I couldn't see why she wouldn't tell me anyway," he's saying.

Angela lays a hand on his arm, encourages him back into his seat.

Sitting, he continues on, "Oh, god, I sound like one of _those_ guys." His hair's cut short, and he slides an anxious hand over his brow and into his buzz cut until he grips the fringe. "I swear I'm normal, I swear. Just— _please_."

Clearing her throat, she says, "I'm allowed to update you on the patient's status, but legally, only his sister can make medical decisions." She pairs it with a small smile, but—

Knuckles tighten. "Oh, god," he says again, "Has it come to that? Are there _decisions_?"

She shakes her head. "No decisions." And she moves into a list of updates and injuries. There's not much aid to offer for his dreaded broken ribs, but she summons the faith she places in the orthopedic surgeon to fortify her voice as she talks about his femur, and the casts he'll wear, and so on and so on. She tries to dance around the state of his guts, resorting to codewords she cringes over. "It's touch and go right now," she says of them, meaning, _It's awful, but we're not at_ decisions _yet._

Hands wringing in his lap now — Should she mention worry beads? Breathing exercises? — he catches her meaning. "It's— It's just, you need to understand," his throat's working now, "we only met a week ago. I mean, in person. I drove down to spend the week. And it's been amazing. But this— this is the first time we've gone riding together, in real life, you know?"

And the gentle smile is freezing and falling, because she's hearing the next words before he says them, and they're seizing up all the gears keeping her upright—

Of course, he can't know the effect of them. Who would? For most folks, it's a normal topic, a safe if sometimes tender topic.

So he continues, "We're always riding together in our dreams, and it's fine." He pauses. "Do you think it means something? To finally meet your soul-mate and then he's clipped by a fucking car?"

 _Soul-mates_.

 Of _course_.

 ***

So she returns to the operating theatre. Something's settled in her chest. Something solid and sure and not _heavy_ , not like grief, but something with weight. Something like iron forms over her ribcage and girds her heart from her useless thoughts. Angela notes it as she scrubs in, as she's scouring germs off her hands and wrists. She mistakes the certainty of it as dread at first. If not grief, what else weighs on her so much?

She comes to understand it as a nurse helps her tie a new surgical mask and a fresh scrub cap on. The certainty in her chest is simply certainty: she will save the young man on the table. He is not too far gone, and today, for this surgery, she is enough.

Before her lies his insides. She will sort them out, re-sect the functional parts and he will have short-gut syndrome, but he will live.

Their fragile, week-old love story will not end today.

 ***

As far as historians can point, the Dream-sharing Phenomenon began during the tail-end of the early modern period. For England it was during the Regency Era, the Edo Period in Japan, when the Qajar ruled the Sublime State of Persia and the Qing ruled China, when India was under company rule, just past Spain's Age of Enlightenment and as the Ottoman Empire began to decline.

On an average day, Angela wishes it never began at all: what's so wrong with building a relationship between two well-matched people? Two average people, who don't share dreams? (She pushes down thoughts of _Not as though you can find one of those_.) Today, scorning soul-mates and dream-sharing and this connection of love and compatibility and shared futures is a curse and she will not bring any curses into this room.

There's no age or other trigger people can find, but at some point in their lives, people's nights start melding together. They visit each other in their dreams and share landscapes. But: they cannot speak.

Some people complain about it: _Oh_ _, if only we could speak to each other, I could find them, and I wouldn't be so_ alone. Most folks have the tact not to, of course. But still, those tactless folks exist and Angela never knows if those encounters will leave her with a tense jaw or a wilted soul.

Since it began, people took different approaches. In the early times, (once the poor new generation of dream-sharers were confirmed not witches) plenty of folks stirred up messes claiming they were soul-mate to this duke or that earl. As the Georgian Period edged into the Victorian era, those born high viewed it noble to ignore your soul-mate and marry properly, a theme which saw renewed attention in the fifties. In the eighties and nineties, it was visited again with a different view: choosing who you love. After all, a soul-mate isn't necessarily a romantic partner: simply the person you'll spend the rest of your life dreaming about. Some people hunt down their partners and marry. Some are content to live their lives knowing their soul-mate is there when they close their eyes. Some people's soul-mates are groups of friends, a position supported by a hit sitcom.

Angela is nearly finished with the bowel now — the patient's vitals hold stable, the orthopedic surgeon has closed the surgical opening in the patient's leg and is tidying up. In her chest, today's certainty holds true.

Not these new soul-mates. Not today.

Of course, the whole thing is monetized. Agencies advertise on TV how they'll hunt down your soul-mate, no fuss, no muss. Angela cannot escape it, even in her downtime.

People post about them on their blogs. Authors write hit books about unlikely soul-mates or broken people who still somehow find The One. Dating websites offer soul-mate services, but there's always a catch, always payment to use more features, to see who has the same matches as you.

She stopped bothering with dating apps and soul-mate agencies long ago.

It happens for most people in their twenties. Angela is approaching forty. Maybe she's one of those people not suitable to share her life until retirement, but she suspects she's one of those broken people, one of those people whose dreams simply do not match with anyone else's. she doesn't get enough sleep, anyways, most of it captured in on-call rooms. Co-workers she's friendly with call her a lone wolf, but she knows a thing or two about wolves. A lone wolf is not a badass or some beautiful, poetic soul eking out an existence in solitude. Wolves are pack animals. Humans are pack animals. A lone wolf is a shunned wolf, a broken wolf.

And maybe she is a broken wolf, a lone dreamer, and that's okay. Her work occupies such a broad slice of her life, it's unfair to ask anyone to share it, unfair to strike out among the folks who've accepted they'll never find their soul mate but still might claim happiness somewhere else.

When she was younger, when she was still a dreamer, she still wondered _when_ and not _if_. But those were foolish days, foolish presumptions: when she still toyed with nanotech, when healing in the safe walls of the hospital wasn't a big enough dream for her. No, she had to chase bigger, bloodier things, she had to batter herself against the tides of war, in the thick of bodies. In medical hospital, they trained her to go to the dead man first to revive him; out there in the field, they told her to bypass that man, go right for the ones still alive.

What was wrong with the lives she saved in the hospital? Was the child with an appendix less worthy? The elderly woman and her shattered hip? This poor man and his fractured femur and mangled intestines?

Why did she chase pain and suffering to its limits?

Her job at the hospital is valuable. She wanted to save lives, and she is saving lives. She sees this now.

 ***

Today she saves a man who was hit by a car.

He is pale but stable as he's wheeled from the operating theatre. Angela strips herself of gown and gloves for the final time that day and washes her hands with the usual diligence, but not the furor from earlier.

The orthopedic surgeon slaps her back and says, "Excellent work today, Dr. Ziegler."

Angela manages a muted, "Thanks," but thinks otherwise. Today's surgery wasn't excellent work; it was simply _work_. Her _job_. She did not go above and beyond. No one compliments a toaster for not burning toast.

Still, the glow she's garnered from the surgery isn't dimmed so easily. She smiles and laughs and catches Emily up on the case and they plan to head out for drinks in the evening. A man is alive. A man in dire condition survived. Today she was enough.

In the waiting room, she meets the patient's sister. She's sitting with the soul-mate and they grip each other's hands. Angela approaches them with a smile and her hands tucked away casually into her pockets.

"He's in recovery," she says. Then, "He still has a long road ahead of him.

But, _oh_ , in this moment long roads mean nothing.

The soul-mate and the sister turn to each other for a hug in the same moment, and then they've locked each other in a fierce grip over the armrests of the waiting room chair, and it's an embrace of back rubs and laughs and sobs choked out, sobs which waited at the top of their throats, ready for something else.

Today, Angela was enough.

 ***

With the hit-and-run patent's surgery completed, Angela's ready to crash. Outside the OR, the world is real again. The demand of surgery fades, reality catches up to her in a rush of exhaustion and small pains. She rounds on her other patients, massaging the kink at the base of her spine between rooms and rubbing her knuckles into the corners of her burning eyes when she gets a second to herself. She's aching for sleep when she hits the on-call room.

 _Finally_.

On the top bunk, she curls up on her side. She resists the temptation to pull her ponytail loose and scrub a hand through her hair. Today she's a little lenient with herself and dares to reward herself with the thought of a soul-mate. Nothing too grandiose, nothing too self-indulgent. She doesn't picture herself with, say, a model, or someone any time _soon_ , or any specifics at all, truth be told.

But she pulls the sheet up to her ears, dips the tip of her nose into the pillow and imagines _this_ : Little updates and "I love yous" waiting on her phone when she sneaks a break, a familiar face waiting for her when her eyes close, a forehead pressed against hers when she works herself up after a rough day, a warm hand always seeking the small of her back, a palm cupping the curve of her jaw.

Angela's not so arrogant to assign specific features to her imaginary soul-mate, she's no catch herself: a workaholic thirty-seven-year-old with a vainglorious past and a broken soul. But: loving eyes. A gentle touch. A smiled tipping into delight when their gazes catch.

With a hazy grasp on her not-to-be lover's hand, she falls fast into sleep.

 ***

Angela's dreams come in two varieties.

The first: all muted tones bleeding to grey-scale bleeding to nothingness and panic, panic, panic beating a frantic drum in her chest, her mind always on the threatening edge of plunging into limb-locking terror.

The second: noise and fire. The sky settles itself into the crimson of warnings and threats. Explosions rock the sky and set the ground to trembling. Surgical instruments slip from her hands, tremors open the hastily closed wounds on her patients, and Angela can no longer tell when a patient is alive or dead. The wounded in this dream are always a little more gruesome, a little more bloody: a footless child crawling into the hospital bed, a handless woman begging for her mother, a man who is only a head pleading for help, pleading for Angela to save him. There's an endless line of patients here, and they come and go so fast she doesn't have room for terror: only horror.

(But always, she cannot save her patients.)

This time, it's the first dream.

She's coated in sweat, fear sweat, dripping into the patients open abdominal cavity, because she's alone, always alone out here —

— and she's already soaked the shoulder of the t-shirt she wears, ducking her head and wiping it away —

— and she's fighting the trembling in her owns hands, always, _always_ —

— and the only colour among the muted tent walls and the deadened skin tones of both her and her unfortunate patient is scarlet —

— and it's splattered up her arm and gleaming on her gloves —

— and she's only just convinced her internal stitch work to hold, and she's pinching the edges of the wound together with a stapler —

— and her hand _twitches_ —

— and now all her work is unravelling, blood rushes and gushes up from the open end of the wound —

— and she shouts for someone, for _anyone_ , she cannot handle this alone —

— and as she stuffs fistfuls of gauze into the open wound her patient is no longer a scrawny young man barely out of his teens but a pregnant woman —

— and she's lying prone, unconscious, but Angela still hears her pleas —

— "Please, I've already lost my husband, how am I supposed to do this without a leg?" —

— and Angela doesn't know, she doesn't have these sort of answers, she can only stitch them back together the best she can —

— _she can only_ —

Angela wakes up. It's not a pleasant waking or a gentle one: her mind feels a little like someone's grabbed a good, squishy handful of her grey matter and yanked her across the boundary from sleep to wakefulness.

"Ugh." It comes thick and gravelly. She blinks twice and the on-call room's pock-marked tile ceiling comes into focus. There's something warm in her hand — _oh_ , a wrist. She releases it. "Sorry."

"No, no, it's fine!" Emily's voice comes from below her. "Shift's over. You still up for drinks tonight?"

Angela props herself up on one elbow and seeks out the clock. Emily's correct; her long shift is finally over.

She clears her throat, tries to sound more coherent than she feels at the moment. "Oh. Yes."

Drinks sound nice.

 ***

Angela signs out, silences her stomach with a pre-packed wrap from the hospital cafeteria and drives home. She eats at red lights. The wrap is more sad lettuce than anything else, but it does the trick, and she's dusting her hand over her pants absently before she knows it, three blocks away from home.

Home is a third-floor apartment with a stunning view of the back parking lot. Everything inside is clean and modern — high ceiling, can lights, blocky white furniture, glass-topped tables, polished faux wooden floors, stainless steel finishes — and utterly unlived in. Her favourite feature is the pair of gleaming air conditioner units, one in the main living space and one in her bedroom. With the washer and dryer, they're possibly the only appliances in the house she's used.

Bag abandoned beside a black accent pillow, she heads for the shower, shedding clothes as she goes.

Hot water is a blessing, and she wraps her arms around herself, her back to the spray, and lets the water beat away the stress of the day.

In her bedroom, she perches on the end of her bed. It's a double, the ivory bedspread a match to the rest of her decor, and as her perch of choice, bears the odd splotch of colour. One, and then the other, at a time, she draws her knees to her chest and paints her toes, tonight a silky pink. She did try to go seasonal, last year, at the beginning of fall. Turns out, orange looks terrible against her pale toes, and even worse in the strappy black shoes. She's dripped this pink here before — there's a fingertip of an old drip beside her leg. The dot's long since dried. More worrisome is the red splotch, the result of a sudden phone call and an errant elbow back in the spring. According to the label, the colour was Maui Sunset, but the women she opts to bring home always crack about the connection between her profession and blood. Sly, "Brought your work home?" and nervous, "You're not a modern Jack the Ripper, are you?" Once, "Oh my god, I think that's the first colour I've seen in here."

Her phone buzzes. Watchful of the bottle of Pillow Pie Pink, she twists to the right and scoops her phone off the bedspread. It's from Emily: the time and location of the bar.

Angela sets her phone down and hunches over to blow on her toes. Here's how the night will proceed: She will arrive at the bar on time. Mostly on time, anyways. She'll tip back a couple shots with Emily and her soul-mate. She will talk with them about work, about whatever household project Lena is putting off, about plans for their upcoming two entire weeks off work: the usual. Emily and Lena will drink until they are giggly and drunk and suitably soul-mate-like adorable, and then cab it home. Angela will see this and order another drink, and then seek out eye contact with the woman across the room until one of them picks the other up. One of them will ask the other about going home for coffee and know the other doesn't specifically mean coffee. Or maybe they won't dance around it. Maybe they'll just go. And for the time, she will giggle and have a good time until the morning comes, and she will have spent another night dreaming alone.

 ***

At first, the night goes exactly as projected.

Lena, Emily's British ex-pat soul-mate, has chosen a horrible little Irish place downtown they've never tried before. She's got a wicked grin on her face as soon as Angela catches her eye.

Angela heaves out a breath and says, "Really?"

But the first round is on Lena, mostly, Angela figures, to shut her up. She orders pickle shots for them, of all things, and they aren't terrible — just terribly strange. Something about them gives her a craving for a burger. How odd.

The happy couple moves onto matching drinks, and Angela risks the bar's signature cocktail, something called a Bullfrog, a combination of at least four different liquors and some clear soft drink in a glass of concerning size. True to its name, the concoction is a froggish shade of bottle green.

"You've considered therapy again, yeah?" Lena's asking when the topic of soul-mates and Angela's related issues come up. There's a scuff as Emily not-so-discreetly kicks her under the table. "What?"

Angela sips at her drink. "I'm going to pass." Whatever is broken inside her is unfixable.

"I'm just sayin'," she pushes on, "What if you need to learn to open your heart to it or whatever?"

In her own opinion, her heart's a little too open, which is why dreaming always hurts so damn much. Angela props her head in her hands and surveys the bar instead. Emily's moved into a low, hissing lecture over the table.

The bar itself isn't a bad place, not really. It's all comfortable low lighting and rich, dark wood. Lit-up signs behind the bartender on the far side of the room advertise imported genuine Irish lager and there's live music in the form of a small-time band in the corner covering a mix of indie and rock songs. Truthfully, Angela's just developed a healthy distaste for all things Irish after a particularly regrettable relationship a few years back.

"What do you say?" Emily's saying from beside her.

"Hmm?" Angela's sipped away more than half of the Bullfrog now.

"If you don't have anything lined up, do you want to join us?" Emily's talking about their upcoming vacation. "We don't have to share a hotel room obviously," she adds.

"I'd rather not intrude on your romantic getaway," Angela says. A whole vacation laden with soul-mate-filled goodness? She'll pass.

Emily pushes on. "It's more of a cultural experience than a romantic getaway," she says, "The museum's hosting a travelling exhibition on Pompeii, and the local art scene is incredible." Urging, she adds, "We don't have to do the same things! You wouldn't be intruding — you could tour the city at your own pace, and we can meet up for dinner at the hotel!"

Angela digs her straw into the ice cubes and sucks back the last of her Bullfrog. "I'll think about it," she relents. She'd planned to learn knitting during those weeks. In preparation for her encroaching spinsterhood. And the manual dexterity, of course.

It's good enough for Emily, and the topic moves on. Angela orders another Bullfrog — it's good in a sweet, swampy, liquory sort of way.

 ***

As predicted, once buzzed, Lena and Emily duck out to a pita place down the street, giggly and sweet with each other. Angela frees up the table and moves to a bar stool. She finds a leggy, dark-haired woman who eyes her right back, and soon she's jumping in a cab with her and laughing too much to cover the last traces of anxiety. Her cabmate-slash-future-bedmate insists on her place, and Angela never sees a reason to insist on her own place unless it's particularly hot.

The cab pulls up outside a square house in the suburbs with a dark blue roof and a genuine white picket fence coming to Angela's waist. Her company for the night leads her through the little white gate — complete with a lattice overhang above it — down a paved path splitting her lush front yard and through her front door. Angela hesitates on the front step as the woman fumbles for the right key. The blue-roofed house stretches over her, all square windows with tidy white shutters, baby blue siding and soft ethereal curtains hiding the rooms beyond.

And there's a mini-van in the driveway.

_What am I stepping into?_

With a click, the door unlocks, and the woman tugs her inside, and Angela forgets all her concerns for a second in a flurry of giggles and lips and lonely hands.

 A pale, lumbering form appears at the end of the hallway. Angela tenses and points, and the form barks at her.

 " _Shh_ ," the dark-haired woman hisses. "Shh! that's a good boy."

Angela's frozen in the doorway, the woman's hand at her waist. Tail swishing and tongue lolling, a dark-eyed blond lab comes over. Angela lays a hand on his head in greeting. She judges him as older, based on the loose scruff around his neck and his lumbering gait.

Her date's lowering a hand to his collar and murmuring something encouraging. "I'll set him up in the downstairs bathroom with a few bones," she says with a smile.

Angela stands alone in the doorway, one shoe off and one shoe on, as the two disappear down the dark hallway. She wanted to say she likes dogs; how she doesn't mind him at all. But it's not the problem weighing on her mind.

Her maybe-not-bedmate is coming back down the hall, one hand beckoning and one holding a finger up to her lips.

Nerves tingling, Angela presses her palms against her thighs. "Who are we not waking?" she asks. "I'd rather not be party to adultery if you're cheating." She checked her fingers. She _always_ checks fingers.

 "I'm thoroughly divorced," she assures. Her hand's still outstretched. "Soul-mate's a gay guy in Iceland. Very supportive through the whole process."

 "Then why are we sneaking around?" Angela presses.

"Hey." She lifts a hand and rubs at the back of her neck. "I've got kids. Do you want a six-year-old knocking on the bedroom door? I don't."

 Angela's throat tightens. "I don't think I can do this."

The soft, beckoning voice slips away. "Christ, come on, because I'm a mother?" she asks. "What, is it too much baggage?"

And her mind's slipping out of the pleasant haze it sunk into, shaking off the lull of soft touches and eager kisses, and Angela's staring _something_ in the face. Something a little too real. She's staring at another life, a complex web of little realities. She's staring a woman who has a story for each child, and one for the dog, and smaller one for the babysitter presumably crashing on her couch.

Angela doesn't have any of those little realities: she has a home life she slips into once a week and discards again like an afterthought. She doesn't want any of those little realities.

Not like this.

She wraps her arms over her torso and says, "I'm not some dirty secret." She grips the fabric of her shirt. "I don't want to be some dirty little thing you sneak in past your kids at night and out again while you distract them with pancakes for breakfast."

"So what? You want me to introduce them to you?" Her not-to-be-lover crosses her arms over her chest in an entirely different manner than Angela has. "'Say hi to mommy's one night stand, sweetie, she's leaving now that she's satisfied mommy.'"

 "I'm just wishing we'd gone back to my place now," she replies. "It's less complicated."

***

 _Complicated_ unleashes a new tirade about single-motherhood and it's joys and tribulations and how Angela doesn't _get it_ , and in the end, there's no chance of anything between them. Unless, of course, Angela counts waiting on her front porch for a cab as something special.

(She doesn't.)

In the cool dark of her apartment, she discards her outfit on the bedroom floor and slips into comfortable summer pyjamas of a loose tank and shorts, then climbs into bed. Frustration burns through her. She fists handfuls of comforter pulled up against her chin.

_Ugh._

Eye-liner tickles the corner of her eyes. She swipes it away and flips over, irritable.

"I'm an idiot."

Of course, _of course_ , her ill-fated one-night-fall-through knew problems might arise if she mentioned her kids. Probably from experience. Still — Angela's chest burns from the trickery and her stomach flips, guilty — was she prejudiced? Was the woman only looking to protect herself? Was it fair play?

She flips over again and fluffs the pillow under her cheek. She knows the _perfect_ way to burn off her frustrations, but her head's too slow and her body too heavy for all of this.

 _Tomorrow_ , she tells herself, _tomorrow I am going directly to the craft store and stocking up on needles and yarn._

 _For the dexterity_ , she tells herself.

It helps, she supposes, yarn isn't known for letting anyone down.

***

Angela's dreaming.

Not of blood splattered on ashen-faced patients or all the loud and bright of pain and noise, but of clear skies and plentiful sunshine.

She stands before a gate, an entrance to a street. Again, she is far from home. Somewhere her unconscious mind clocks as likely middle eastern. The entrance is a curved opening in sandy yellow and brown stones of deliberate placement and design, offset by white geometric designs. Overhead, the sun shines in a perfect trajectory above her, painting grey, well-worn cobbled stone a blinding white.

Here, the sun and heat are their own entity, so clear and present on the street Angela can taste them. She raises a splayed hand and gazes at the sky askance: the sky is pure blue atmosphere. She drinks it in, then steps through the gate.

Vendors line both sides of the street. Above, tin awnings block most of the sun, but Angela still catches snatches of perfect, unforgettable blue. Not a shopkeeper in sight, but all their wares stand on display. Chandeliers and lamps glowing golden; small, gleaming lanterns of gold and silver inset with glass of bright reds and greens and blues; a wall of bold-coloured bags, stuffed to show off their gently rounded shape; slender necklace chains of gold and silver hanging against red velvet; sacks fat with fragrant spices; glass knickknacks with gold accents and glossy candy colours, seemingly more for tourists than anyone else.

Angela steps up to a wall of bags and lifts her hands to one just above eye height, fingers brushing horizontal stripes of orange and white. Brassy brown thread weaves an intricate pattern through the white and yellow weaves a simpler pattern through orange. As her thumb runs over a complex circle, a soft shiver slips down her neck. Angela pivots around on her heel.

Across the path, and two shops down, among the soft glow of the lamps, is another woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I said slow burn I _meant_ it.
> 
> Medical bits based on half-remembered odds and ends from when I used to watch _Grey's Anatomy_.
> 
> Also, I feel like it's important to note this isn't a "therapy doesn't work" fic or a "falling in love completes you/fixes you" fic. Those are just some notions stuck in her head, they'll be dealt with in future chapters.


	2. with a stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angela has a dream. Angela decides the dream is a fluke and takes up knitting.

Angela reels her hands in, as if guilty, and presses them above her heart.  
  
_I am not alone._  
  
Across the way, the woman is mid-turn to Angela, her torso part twisted in Angela’s direction, her head tipped to peek over her shoulder. Her eyes widen and her mouth parts, first painted into surprise, then pulled up in an easy smile.  
  
Angela notes several things in a whirl of small realizations — warm brown skin, golden bangles in dark hair gleaming in the lantern’s glow — then _There’s another person here_ , echoes dully through her and her heart’s kicking up in her chest—  
  
_thud_  
  
_thud_  
  
_thud_  
  
—and she's standing in the same strange street with its treasures and staring at a strange woman with a smile like she's something familiar, and not an intruder on this far away street, and her mind is torn between this woman and how loud her heart's become.  
  
And the taste of sunshine in the air.  
  
And so Angela stares back at the woman, heart pounding at the base of her throat and blood pounding in her ears and the sunlight on her tongue and the strange woman takes a step forward, away from the sweet golden glow and into the broken shade of the street and toward her.  
  
Toward Angela.  
  
The heel of Angela’s heart gives the inside of her ribcage three more good kicks—  
  
_thud_  
  
_thud_  
  
_thud_  
  
—and dream sense grips her.  
  
Sweet blue shade and candy-bright colours and soft glows swirl as Angela tumbles forward, and then up, up, up, and away. She's small and vulnerable and dipped in downy feathers as she flutters away to somewhere else.  Somewhere safe. Well, safer. She flutters down the street, strips of light and shade striping her vision, and then she's up among the awnings, gripping the edge of a vendor's roof with delicate feet. Angela needs a second to assess this situation, a second to gaze at this strange woman from afar. A second to—  
  
Angela wakes up in the comfortable dark of her room. Yellow streetlights tint the outlines of her bedroom furniture from beyond her half-mast blinds. She sits up, arms rigid at her sides, supporting her, covers pooled in her lap. She’s in her bedroom, in her apartment, in her city. Not far off — why does it seem she’s always far off in these dreams, bad or benign? — to god knows where. Oh, Angela’s seen open markets before, but not this particular market.  
  
Nor this particular woman.  
  
She comes to a snap decision and crawls out of bed. She lingers there, beside her bed, neck sticky with sweat, head full of her heartbeat and half drunk on the dream. Then she drags herself onward.  
  
In the bathroom, she pumps the dimmer switch to full and thinks _Good_ as her eyes smart. Blasting cold water, she splashes her face and neck without finesse until the front of her pyjamas soak through and puddles line the counter.  
  
_Good_ , she thinks again.  
  
Leaning both hands on the counter, Angela leans over and meets her own eyes. In the full light, she looks pallid, the blue of her eyes only serving to underscore the blue shadows beneath. _Don’t think anything about this_ , she tells her reflection, _it means nothing_.  
  
_Understand?_  
  
And she understands. Good god, does she understand.

***

  
  
Lights play across the living room ceiling. Angela sits with the small of her back up against the arm of the couch, feet up and knees pulled in close. To her right, the TV plays. She's knocked the volume to barely audible, and with its low rumble, the television program's more of a companion in her woes than a full distraction.  
  
With her work schedule, seventy-two hours on, twenty-four hours off, Angela hasn’t engaged in anything with characters or a storyline for a while. She mostly sticks to programs she can drop in and out of: Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and tonight, the Food Network. She avoids competition programs unless she’s in a particularly masochistic mood. There’s always someone who brings up their soul-mate. Some keep it profession: _I was drawn to cooking in high school_ , _I moved across the country when I turned twenty_ , _I specialize in French cuisine with a twist and hope to open my own restaurant_. But most competitions have four competitors, and the odds of a soul-mate story are not in Angela’s favour.  
  
_I just met my soul-mate last September and with these funds, I can fly out and meet her._  
  
_My soul-mate and husband beat cancer last year and I promised him we’d see Hawaii._  
  
Once: _I had a soul-mate who died before we met, and now I’m dreaming about someone again and want to use these winnings to find them._  
  
In tonight’s show, someone’s touring restaurants, mostly in Canada, sampling and then boasting about the cuisine. The fourth episode in the block is a _While in Italy_ special episode.  
  
Generally, Angela likes these types of shows best. There’s a level of cheer in this sort of show, in programming wholly devoted to enjoyment and celebration of good food. Once in a blue moon, if she’s lucky, they’ll mention something Swiss. Mostly fondue or raclette or something else from the French part. But sometimes she’ll really luck out, and some little cafe somewhere will feature _birnweggen_ or _meitschibei_ or one of the other things her mother used to make, one of the things Angela was too young to grasp the ins and outs of to replicate the recipes before it was too late.  
  
The Italian specials snuff out that small, strange hope for the next half hour — why must they always visit Italy? Angela mutes the sound entirely now and presses the heels of her palm against her eyes. As half drunk on the dream as she was when she woke, she was also half drunk on questionable cocktails, and that half-drunk is quickly blurring into a hangover.  
  
Nothing less than she deserves, really. Who's she kidding? A woman her age chasing down any stray touch another woman will spare her? Seeking out a warm bed as soon she clocks out? Scrabbling for whatever scrap of the soul-mate experience she can hook her fingers into?  
  
A word exists for people like her. Oh, if your soul-mate dies, it’s _tragic_. And, baffling to her, if your soul-mate’s a friend, it’s _unfortunate_. (Who, Angela wonders, is so greedy they want more than a lifetime of warmth and support?) But the word for people like her is simple and small, befitting her situation, only three letters.  
  
Angela lifts her damp shirt from her chest and pats it over her face. Behind her temples, a headache throbs, long and dull in its reminder. She sits and refuses to dose her self with ibuprofen. She sits and refuses to sleep. Relief is not for the foolish like her. Sleep is not for idiots who jump at every lucid dream — and she decides, sitting there, damp shirt warming to her face, it was only a lucid dream, the woman a figment of her imagination — and cry _soul-mate_.  
  
Angela’s heard the faces folks see in dreams are pasted there from reality. So, she concludes, she must’ve seen the woman in the bar. Or in the waiting room earlier. Or maybe as a competitor on one of those shows. Who knows?     
  
But for a copy and pasted figment, the woman is embedded in her mind, a crystalline shard, sharp and clear and present. Unbidden, Angela traces over the edges of her, again and again. Dark hair trimmed near her jaw (and Angela tries not to think of it as a _lovely_ jaw.) Battered brown leather flight jacket over a navy Henley. Warm smile. How something in her eyes lit upon when they landed on Angela.  
  
Like glass, the moment cuts.  
  
Angela traces them over and over again until her chest is tight and she’s well and truly hungover.  
  
How much is true? How many details has she embellished with each trace?  
  
_Vbbbbrr_  
  
Adrenaline spikes through her. Angela sits up straight with a gasp.  
  
Somehow, sunrise escaped her notice. Light leaks in between the gap in her curtains. The host on the TV is out of Italy and gone from the programming block entirely, a calm-voiced woman layers icing on a cake.  
  
Her phone buzzes again, and Angela slaps an irate hand on it. It’s Emily, curious if she wants to join them for breakfast, and her irritation fades.

***

  
Angela accepts the invitation. It’s a goal, a task to keep her mind from the woman threatening to fill every thought. She shocks some logic into herself with a cold shower, mind trained to the day ahead.  
  
Although Angela woke up first, the sun was busy while she pondered her figment woman. Thick heat fills the air and the asphalt steams in the street beside her. Sweat dampens her brow before the end of the second block. But in contrast to the blue skies and potent sunshine in her dreams, the day strikes her as a mockery, something hazy and untrue.  
  
She tries not to think of it.  
  
Two and a half blocks, and some more sweat and regret later, Angela arrives at The Diner House. Angela’s whole body sighs as she steps into the air conditioning and potent breakfast scents of salty bacon and crisp coffee. A quick glance around: Emily and Lena have yet to arrive. Angela picks out a table in easy view of the doorway and sits.  
  
Whoever decorated The Diner House likes things retro. Angela sits in a chair upholstered in bright lemon yellow vinyl, it’s family in a shade of citrusy orange, berry blues and reds, and a particular shade of aqua not seen elsewhere outside of the fifties. Luckily, whoever decorated The Diner House also possessed the common sense of restraint: the aluminum rimmed tables are a bone white, and there isn’t a checked tile in sight.  
  
A waitress delivers a menu and asks if she wants a drink to start. Angela’s spent the last handful of hours dabbling in masochism, but no one, even her mopiest of selves, keeps Angela from her caffeine. The waitress brings a plain white mug and tips black coffee from a pot into until Angela says, “Stop.” Once the waitress turns around to another customer, Angela fishes drippy ice cubes from her complimentary glass of water and drops them in her mug.  
  
She’s not in the mood for blowing at steam and waiting for it to cool, either.  
  
Angela downs the coffee, and then a second, and she's halfway through her third cup of black coffee when Emily and Lena arrive. Emily's nose appears on the verge of considering a sunburn, but otherwise, the pair are linked arm in arm despite the heat, looking happy and fresh and — Angela notes with the smallest bit of envy — well-rested.  
  
Angela catches their eyes and soon they’re seating themselves across from her.  
  
Lena sits opposite her in a blue chair. “Someone missed out on sleep.” Her voice is bright and chirpy. “Good night there?”  
  
Angela looks her in the eyes. "I've drunk two and a half cups of coffee." With that, she tips the mug back and drains it. "Three now." She gestures to the menu. "Please order faster."  
  
Emily orders wild mushrooms over French toast and earns A Look from her soul-mate. Lena orders a tidy breakfast quiche. Angela decides — since she’s resigned to dying utterly alone — to forego her usual granola parfait and dive into a stack of creamsicle-inspired pancakes made with orange pudding and topped with vanilla mascarpone.  
  
_What the hell, right?_  
  
And a fourth coffee.  
  
Definitely a fourth coffee.  
  
Breakfast arrives, and they fall to eating. Emily lifts her brows at the stark orange of Angela's breakfast but says nothing when Angela raises her eyebrows right back. She slices a neat triangle from the edge, down all three layers of pancakes and teases the tip of them with mascarpone. They're delicious — she announces so to the table as well — and devouring them hogs her focus. She almost misses Emily and Lena exchanging (mushroomless) bites of breakfast, all smiles and forks held awkwardly turned into the other.  
  
Angela’s first thought is of the dark-haired woman, what she eats for breakfast — is she eating breakfast, parallel to Angela, right now? — and what she would think of Angela’s breakfast. Would she laugh it off? Cast wary glances as if her plate were radioactive? Run a finger over the back of Angela’s hand, seeking a bite?  
  
At that thought, Angela gulps down pancakes hard. Her throat smarts and she reaches for lukewarm coffee.  
  
“How do you know?” She poses to either of them .“How do you know when you have—” She gestures to the slim space between them.  
  
“Oh, Ange,” Emily says.  
  
“You’ve been going out all this time,” Lena says, “All those women, and you haven’t had a single org—”  
  
Emily pops a single sauteed wild mushroom in Lena’s mouth. “That’s not what she’s talking about.”  
  
“I _mean_ ,” Angela presses on, “When you two started dreaming about each other, did you know? Were your dreams—” she fumbles the word — “Special?”  
  
Emily leans forward. “Do you think you’ve had one?” she asks. “A soul-mate dream?”  
  
She’s tried to avoid the word. Her over-caffeinated heart gives a painful squeeze.  
  
As a funny unnamed thing in the back of her head, it was toothless. As a concept she toyed with in the back of her head, as a silly little fantasy, it could not hurt her. Said out loud, the realness of it, it’s largeness and impossibility bloats painfully inside her.  
  
And on her lonely side of the table, her seat for one, she's too tired, her eyes too gritty with the need for sleep and her hangover drumming idly behind her temples to deal with it.  
  
The corners of her fake smile ache. “No, I haven’t slept at all.” Angela forces a laugh. “You know, I didn’t even stay the night with her. Instead, I was up all hours of the night, thinking the stupidest thoughts.”  
  
Emily’s hopeful expression falters.  
  
Angela switches tracks. She turns to Lena. “You know, she wanted to sneak me in, past her kids,” she says. “Not to mention past the babysitter on the couch. I think I need to start insisting on my place.”  
  
And, for the moment, it works.

***

  
Her dream was a fluke.  
  
A singular, wonderful experience. But a fluke all the same.  
  
Or so she tells herself.  
  
 After breakfast, she hunts down yarn and needles in the closest craft store. She returns to her little apartment, winds a strand of yarn around a needle and takes them up as she digests tutorial after tutorial of YouTube videos.  
  
Angela dips back into her regular schedule. For over two weeks, she works and knits, knits and works, and then works some more. Four sets of seventy-two-hour shifts and twenty-four hours off. Three days of threading skin and muscle and guts back into their rightful place, then one day of winding thread around itself, stitch by amateur stitch and forming a new whole. A few hours of her first day as Amateur Knitter Extraordinaire watching tutorials and a single tutorial video to pick it up again after three days of work, Angela trusts herself to knit without them.  
  
Television tuned into non-sequential programming, Angela eats up whatever the channels serve. On the Food Network, she watches failing restaurants revitalized, cringes in the depth of her soul at deep fried food deep fried a second time in carnivals, learns a dozen different cake recipes she won’t remember and never utilize. On Animal Planet she watches vets neuter packs of stray dogs in Eastern Europe, diagnose a mass on a rare bison, save a dog whose unwitting owner fed them a small bone. And on the Discovery Channel, she watches How Things Are Made.  
  
And Angela herself makes things now. She pushes past dinner time and finishes her first scarf. She holds it up to the artificial glow of her television and light seeps through her stitches. She's dropped stitches in the process and ran out for a crochet hook to fix them, and somehow, she's stitched entire holes here and there she had no intent to add, and she doesn't leave enough leeway when she ties off the tassels at the end and winds up with a blunted fringe when she corrects it with scissors.  
  
But it’s _hers_.  
  
She’s taken up raw materials and forged a whole new thing.  
  
And for two weeks and a day, she continues the pattern. Work and knitting, knitting and work. No more false-positives at night. Her dreams are the same dreams which always fill her head: grey-scales and bone-deep terror, and the vivid horror of war carnage.  
  
By her third day off she stops wondering what the woman in her dream would think of her new hobby and she discovers Portuguese knitting.  Her scarf production increases.  
  
At work, the sleep she steals between patients offers the same dreams as usual, until the day after her fourth day off of knitting.  
  
Angela’s just closed on an emergency appendectomy — the patient suffering under the belief he ate bad seafood — and her mind’s a strange tangle of yarn and intestines as she curls up in an on-call bunk.

***

  
Once again, Angela stands before the stone gate.  
  
Dusk settles into night around her, the patterned stones of sandy yellows deepening to a muted gold with the tint of shadows. Beyond the gate, the market street glows from within, an enticing feast of golden light. She stands on the boundary, between here and the gate and tips her head up: a dozen glittering stars are daring to peak out of the night sky.  
  
Angela steps through the archway.  
  
Silk banners hang between vendors, threads shiny in the light, colours bold and writing unknown to her. Light breaths from behind booths and shops. Lamps and chandeliers trickle light onto her path from their homes in the stalls; candle holders and jewelry and golden souvenirs shine glass shelves, back-lit by their stores.    
  
Wariness prickles through her mind. Angela shakes off the enticing glow of the street and slinks to the side.  
  
_not alone not alone not alone_  
  
She works down the street, booth by booth, store by store. Eyes watchful, she slips in and out of booths.  
  
Her heart kicks up a rhythm.  
  
_not a-lone, not a-lone, not a-lone._  
  
Tonight, the shop stands empty.  
  
Angela stares at its bereft glow. Something inside her deflates — she can't fathom why — and she continues on.  
  
Spices tickle her nose as she passes. In the sinking light, the bags she stroked before fall into watered-down tones beside all the glow and treasure of the street. At the stall after, she pauses and runs a finger over a decorative glass _something_ nestled in a case, surface smooth and warm.  
  
Chandeliers fill the next stall, all of them alight. Not western chandeliers, but round glass orbs of all sizes, rims of gold and brass and steel guarding their own life and light, metallic bands reflecting back glints of light. They fill the space, hanging from walls and ceiling and shelves, hiding yellow stone.  
  
And in the centre of it all stands the woman.  
  
Angela’s heart skips a beat: _not a-lone, not-alone, not_ —  
  
And then it's up and fluttering in the base of her throat, and she's ducking back into her own stall. She breathes deep, once, then twice, and tips her head out past the wall.  
  
She’s in the same outfit of blue Henley and brown flight jacket, this stranger Angela’s seen twice now. Bathed in the auras of gold and light, the wide beads in the hair framing her face flash and gleam; a laurel of light sits in the strands of her shiny dark hair.  
  
She's beautiful — of course, _of course_ , she's beautiful — and Angela can't stop noticing things about her now: dark lashes; the shape of her jawline; the thick black lines of a tattoo beneath her right eye; the hands tucked into the pockets of her jacket, elbows out, fingers drumming against her sides as if waiting—  
  
And of course, Angela can't grasp what she's supposed to do — with these new details, with this woman — so she steps out around the edge of the shop, from the shadows of her hiding place and into the glow surrounding this woman.  
  
Her heart’s beating a fierce beat of wonder and wondering in her chest again. Does she announce herself? Catch the woman’s attention? Angela mirrors the woman’s pose, slides her hands into the pockets of her white lab coat.  
  
But her stranger turns toward her and smiles. Not the same smile of surprise — this time, she dons something playful. She tips her chin a fraction and lifts her eyebrows an inch as if posing a question.  
  
Angela steps forward. Her mouth aches into a smile she can’t seem to hold back, and she ducks her head, her outburst of feathers the first time they met on her mind.  
  
The stranger — how much of a stranger is someone, really if they share something as intimate as a dream? — shifts her elbow, hesitates, then lifts her right hand from her pocket and offers it, held low, fingers together.  
  
Angela leans forward, every intention to place her own within it—

***

  
Angela jolts awake. Her pager's hammering noise in her eardrums. Soft dream tones clash with the harsh whites of the on-call room and birth a headache behind her right eye.  
  
But it’s an _emergency_ , and she is a _doctor_ , and she lacks the time to acknowledge either of those things.

***

  
Angela spears at her salad with her fork. Behind the curtain of her mind, she replays the dream over and over and over again. Her hesitation stole precious seconds — why not approach the woman sooner? Why not take her hand immediately?  
  
She heaves out a sigh, vicious with disappointment. At herself, at the surgical intern unable to distinguish a real problem from the artificial blue dye of a candy a patient on an NG tube sucked on. She shoves the salad in and chews, resting her jaw in her hands. Today’s lunch is the Protein Booster! salad from the hospital’s cafeteria: leaf lettuce, edamame, chickpeas, and spinach topped with slices of cold grilled chicken and drizzled in balsamic disappointment. It’s not, exactly, the highlight of her day. Her gaze slips into the middle distance, unseeing the view of the cafeteria window and instead a stranger’s offered hand.  
  
Fingers snap in front of her face. “Hey, Ange,” Emily says. “Care to come back to us?”  
  
Angela squints at her. Emily's selected some other salad from the lineup, and the cardiac resident joining them, Lucio, eats something brought from home, warmed in the convection oven and infinitely more appealing. "Hmm?"  
  
Emily points a fork at her. “That looks like the lost gaze of a woman planning her next scarf,” she says. “What’s plaguing you?”  
  
Of course, for the first time in weeks, Angela’s mind isn’t on her knitting. It’s on round glass chandeliers. Sandy yellow stones forming an ancient arch. A woman in a flight jacket with golden bangles in her hair.  
  
(And Angela’s own shortcomings, of course. But those are her mind’s favourite haunting grounds.)  
  
She’s yet to give the location an online search. Would knowing change anything? Would she add her own details?  
  
“Say,” Angela begins, “How would one distinguish a soul-mate dream from a lucid dream? What is the difference between truth and wishful thinking?”  
  
Lucio perks up. “Oh?” he asks, “Is Dr. Ziegler _not_ immune to soul-mate dreams?”  
  
“What did you dream?” Emily asks.  
  
“ _Well..._ ” Angela draws out. She stabs spinach, chicken and edamame into a neat stack on her fork. “I’m curious about lucid dreaming is all. I’ve got no control over my dreams and they’re all rather—” She leaves it unsaid.  
  
“Oh,” Lucio says.  
  
“Still?” Emily asks.  
  
Angela nods and chews. In her head, she’s clocking the times both dreams took place: one in the early hours of the morning, and one before noon. Unlikely, she shared the dream. unlikely someone, on average, slept for so long, especially at — well, what time was it where the other woman was?  
  
Angela’s content to leave it there and let the topic drift away, but both tablemates have their phones out and up.  
  
Lucio speaks first. “Here,” he says, “I’ve got an article here on help with nightmares.”  
  
Angela stops chewing. “Oh?” _Oh no._  
  
“’Talk to your doctor about your medications,’” he quotes, “’Some SSRIs can impact your dreams.’ Are you— wait, that’s uh, personal, never mind, here we go—”  
  
Angela lifts an eyebrow.  
  
“’Run some white noise,’” he continues.  
  
“My air conditioner?” Angela says. “Literally always on.”  
  
Lucio clears his throat. “Not very environmentally conscious, Dr. Ziegler,” he chides. “’Analyze your dreams?’”  
  
“I don’t think that will work,” Emily says.  
  
Angela stares at her fork. "They're pretty straightforward."  
  
He thumbs further down the list. “’Avoid scary movies, television programs, and books before bed.’”  
  
She gives the remnants of her salad bowl a mix. “As you know, the Food Network is a bed of suffering and slaughter.”  
  
“’Paint your nightmares,” he continues. “Actually, it says any medium is good, but painting in particular apparently soothes the most.”  
  
Angela shakes her head. “I’m a doctor, not an artist.”  
  
Emily chimes in. “Can she knit them?”  
  
“I’m choosing to ignore that.”  
  
He continues down the list. “It also suggests writing about positive experiences during your day,” he says.  
  
Her brows come together. “You want me to keep a happy diary?”  
  
Lucio turns the screen toward her. “No, the list wants you to keep a happy diary.”  
  
Angela chases a stray bite of edamame around the bottom rim of her bowl. “I guess I can try that,” she says. “What else?”  
  
He glances across at Emily. “Uh,” he hesitates, “’Seek professional help.’”  
  
“Isn’t that what I’m doing?” Angela asks. She points her fork from one to the other. “We’re all professionals here.”  
  
Emily’s lips are pressed together. “You know that’s code for ‘Go back to the damn therapist, Angela.’”  
  
“Oh,” Angela says mildly. “Pass.”  
  
_Hard pass._  
  
Emily’s up in arms about therapy again. “You know it helps a lot of people,” she says, “You just need the right course of action.”  
  
From the second Emily’s mouth opened, Angela’s been shaking her head. “It doesn’t work for me,” she insists. “I’ve tried.”  
  
Oh, how Angela’s tried. The long hours across a stranger with a notebook, writing down only god knows what about her.  
  
_Oh, look, she’s talking about the field hospital again._  
  
_God, she’s so whiny._  
  
_Will she ever mention anything else?_  
  
_Annnd here comes the bit about her parents again!_  
  
She swallows hard and shoves it all down, deep inside her.  
  
Emily’s speaking. “Have you tried, uh, _again?_ ”  
  
Angela fixes her gaze firmly down. “They can’t help.”  
  
“C’mon, Ange,” Emily’s tone softens. “You’re not some magic, unfixable fairy. You just need the right therapist with the right approach. It takes time is all. Everything takes time.”  
  
“Right,” Angela says, “Did you pull up anything useful, or is more of _that?_ ”  
  
Emily’s rolling her eyes over her phone. “Okay, here, we’ve got things which might affect your sleep. Skipping violent media again. Uh, avoid alcohol.”  
  
“Frankly, I find that rude,” Angela’s mouth tugs into a frown. “A good drink’s done more for my sleep than therapy ever has.”  
  
“I figured you’d pass on that one,” Emily says. She crinkles her nose, “Oh, here’s another good one: avoid caffeine.”  
  
Lucio snorts so hard he nearly chokes.  
  
Angela’s mind blanks. “Caffeine?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
_“Caffeine?”_  
  
_“Yes.”_  
  
Angela raises both hands and presses her palms to her eyes. No caffeine? _No caffeine?_ No coffee? No tea? “Emily,” she says in a forlorn voice, “I can’t give up caffeine.”  _No caffeine?_ “I’m a surgeon. I’d _die._ ”  
  
Emily nods. “I know,” she says in sympathy. “Next: eliminate sources of anxiety and stress.”  
  
“I find this list a source of anxiety and stress,” Angela notes.  
  
“Uh-huh,” Emily continues, “Depression?”  
  
“I’d be depressed without _coffee_.”  
  
“Traumatic experiences.”  
  
Angela waves her on. “Life is a traumatic experience.”  
  
Emily lowers her phone. "You brought up the bad dreams," she says. "We're just trying to help."  
  
“Is there anything else on the list?” Angela asks.

Is she looking to _excuse_ her bad dreams? Is she avoiding a solution?  
  
“Last point on the list,” Emily announces, “Daily stress. Anything in your life stress you out? Sub-par salads? Well-intentioned friends? Your profession dedicated to rushing against the clock to save the lives of the critically wounded?”  
  
Angela perches her chin on her hand. “Should’ve gone into dermatology.”  
  
“You consider a vacation?” Lucio asks.  
  
“I’ve got a vacation coming up.” Ten days as Emily and Lena’s third wheel in a strange city. Woooo.  
  
“No,” he continues. “A real vacation. Somewhere warm. Away from here. Maybe take a sabbatical?”  
  
Angela’s readied a response, but Emily cuts in.  
  
“Nope. No way,” she says. “You think the scarves are bad? Put her on sabbatical and she’s coming back armed with _quilts_.”

***

> _Pertaining to the day of:_  
>  _July 17th_  
>  _00:01 ~ 18:00_  
>  _– Successful treatment of patient with ruptured spleen. Patient stable as of 17:37_  
>  _– Partner of recovering patient gifted almond biscuits._  
>  _– Recovering elderly patient explained holes in knit-work. Term “yarnover.” Cause: accidental extra stitch. Can be used intentionally for variation in design._
> 
> _19: 24 ~ present_  
>  _@ Residence of Emily & Lena_  
>  _– Socializing with friends_  
>  _– Enjoying almond biscuits_  
>  _– Began new project (Scarf, Worsted yarn, colour “Glacier Bay”, Size 8 Needles, projected length: 9in x 60in.)_  
>  _– Endured critiques from so-called friends_

  
Angela tips her head back, eyes narrowed on her friends. “It’s a happy diary,” she says, “I’m reinforcing the positive experiences of my day. Why does the format matter?”  
  
She's settled onto the plush carpet at Emily and Lena's, back against the couch, third-wheeling on a movie night in. Unlike Angela's apartment, Emily and Lena spent time wearing in their place. They've spent energy stripping down the default furnishings and adding their own: the tattered loveseat from Emily's "bachelorette" apartment, the ancient coffee table all the way from Britain, the bean bag sheathed in a horrible shag carpet-type fabric Lena bought for the sheer ugliness of it.  
  
There’s a casualness to the place. A realness Angela likes. Someone’s left a bottle of moisturizing cream by the bookshelf. An unsightly brown stain from a cooking mishap haunts the corner of the kitchen.  
  
People live and love here.  
  
And photographs, of course.  
  
Photographs of them together from vacations and special nights. Discoloured shots of their families and pasts. They adorn the walls and sit on end tables, watching Angela, silent in their judgement of her own bare living space. She can't escape them, even if she slips into the washroom to splash her face: photographs from a hiking date marking their second anniversary of meeting watch her from beside the cabinet.  
  
It's a warm place, and on most days, Angela settles in for these movie nights with popcorn and a drink; sometimes here on the rug, and other times, if the move in question leans away from romance, she joins the other two on the couch. But tonight her mind churns out conflicting messes of emotions: her own blank walls, her new notebook and pen, the wine waiting for her at home, an outstretched hand, and the Hollywood romance waiting to smother the television screen.  
  
“I still think you should’ve called it your _Joy Journal_.” Emily sweeps into the room with a mound of popcorn in a metal bowl. She settles on the couch beside Lena, and Angela sees them fold into each other, at home in the other’s personal space. “But I agree. That format is joyless.”  
  
Lena says, “You used military time. It reads like a briefing. It’s sad.”  
  
“ _Mmm-hmm_.”  
  
Angela bristles. "It's not military time," she insists. "We use the twenty-four-hour clock format at the hospital."  
  
“So it’s more like a patient’s chart?” Emily asks. “How is that any better? _Wait_ — you didn’t use hospital shorthand, did you?”  
  
At that, Lena leans forward, a bit too curious for Angela’s taste. 

Angela huddles over the pages, shielding them. “I’ve already shared too much with you two.”  
  
Emily reaches for the remote. She clicks the movie into action. “You know, Ange,” she says, “If you want it to stick, you should actually write about the events as if you enjoyed them.  
  
Angela says nothing. She folds the book shut and retires the pen in the groove between covers. At the end of her shift, she drove to the nearest bookstore and picked it out: eight by six, bound with a creamy ivory faux-leather, a single wing in profile embossed on the cover.  
  
Later, at home, Angela rewrites her entry. Mopey from the romance, scripted for a feel-good, everybody-wins-and-you-can-too ending, and much too sober to think about anything else, Angela curls up against her pillow and takes up the pen again. A single nightside lamp casts a buttery glow over the room, pale furniture soaking it up.  
  
Tonight she brings her most reliable date to bed with her — red wine — and nestles the bottle against her thigh. Between sips of Merlot, Angela frowns at the page and searches inside herself for the sort of emotional authenticity the task, apparently, requires.

***

  
In the waking world, Angela's fallen asleep; in her dreams, she's among the sandy stones again, at the foot of the gate.  
  
Clear blue sky soars overhead. It's daylight again, and the weight of sunlight hangs in the air. Light from high above casts shadows with neat corners and trimmed edges, and sunshine fills the roads.  
  
Something about today is _different_. There’s a magnetism in the air, thick and true as the heat. Her heart gives a giddy squeeze, as if on the edge of a climax or the cusp of a perfect bite. Angela turns around, back to the gate, and follows the path in the opposite direction.  
  
No stalls line this street. Angela walks past sun-drenched stones climbing high above her. All the buildings here are built of the same multi-toned yellows and soft browns. Each placement is precise, and each wall is patterned in some way, whether simple or geometric and complex. The buildings are old, ancient even, but nothing crumbles.  
  
Angela follows the path where it leads her to a wider street. The structures here are more varied in shape and purpose, and dare to reach greater heights. Angela stops and stares up, sandy walls framing her view. She stares until the sun sits heavy in her eyes and she dips her gaze back down.  
  
She expected her, somehow, anticipated her even. But still, her heart gives another wonderful, eager jolt as Angela settles her gaze on her mystery woman across the street.  
  
Same outfit, same playful smile. Same hesitation as she pulls a hand from her pocket and holds it out.  
  
Tonight, no interruptions separate them. No panic seizes Angela’s chest at the sight of her.  
  
Tonight is the night she crosses the street and takes the woman’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NG tube: Nasogastric intubation. You can change output colour with, say, Lifesavers candy. But you shouldn't.  
> And Angela is not, in fact, a magical, unfixable fairy.


	3. with joy and with pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angela gets hot and bothered at work and then dares to plan for the future. (The audacity!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. It's been seven months and nine days. I know. _I know._

Hand in hand with her dark-haired dream woman, Angela traverses the sun-blessed streets. Heat and sun fill the paths before them, but it never taxes her body as the real world does. More noticeable is the warmth of the hand gripping hers, the palm pressed against her own. Twice, Angela tries to speak up, to say something—to thank her guide for the tour, for her hand, for her smile—but of course, no words come.

Together, Angela and her dream partner wander through the street.

Angela wakes, warm, still breathing in sunshine and breathing out wonder.

Through the nights—nights on Angela’s part, she has yet to pinpoint her soul-mate’s location—they wander up one side of the street and down the other. Sometimes, when she dreams, she meets her soul-mate at the height of day, in pure sunlight and sometimes they wander the streets in a hazy dusk, the air sweet and heady with lotus blossoms. But in every dream, her soul-mate waits for Angela, quick to flash an encouraging smile her way and always bearing an open hand to hold.

 _Her_ soul-mate.

Angela’s _soul-mate_.

Angela nurtures the idea of a soul-mate, her connection to this woman. She cradles it in the hollowed out spot in her chest, where she used to carry her nanotech aspirations, her dreams of saving the world. They’ve left an empty space—big dreams leave behind big spaces—and once she calls it such, once she writes it down in her journal, the idea of a soul-mate is neither big or daunting or unfulfillable,

It is small and comfortable and warm.

Angela flips her journal around and writes from the back heading in:

_I see a woman in my dreams._

_I see a woman when I sleep._

_I share my dreams with someone._

And twenty or so variations later, she writes, in slow deliberate letters:

_I think I have a soul-mate._

Tingles creep up her hand and wrist and arm, and Angela’s throat tightens. She lays the pen across the page and rises. She walks a loop around her apartment, eyes blurring, and then another, until they clear. Upon her return, she stretches out on her bed and writes whatever she’s learned, every precious bit of knowledge about her soul-mate.

( _Her_ soul-mate.)

(Her _soul-mate_.)

( _Her soul-mate.)_

 _Good grief, this is why no one ever shuts up about it, isn_ _’t it?_

She writes, so there is no uncertainty:

 

>   _Angela’s Soul-mate (!!!!) _
> 
> _\- Taller than I am. (At least 5’8”)_  
>  \- Age: Late twenties - mid-thirties.  
>  ~~\- Perfect smile~~  
>  \- Perfect hands  
>  \- Tattoo beneath right eye. (Ouch!)  
>  \- Likely Middle Eastern.  
>  ~~\- Very good facial structure.  
>  ~~ \- Beads / bangles in hair (Significance?)  
>  ~~\- Okay, good overall structure.~~

_What_ _’s your name?_ Angela traces a loose circle with her fingertip over the page. _Who are you? What can I show_ you _?_

_Am I good enough?_

She inhales once, sharp and sure, and kills the thought. Pulling her phone in across the coverlet, Angela pulls up a list of possible countries: Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Cyprus, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.

Angela runs her teeth over her lip. _Where are you?_

 _More importantly_ , she thinks, switching to a list of timezones, _why are you asleep in the middle of the day?_

She compares her time on the west coast against a list of possible countries: depending on the country, there’s a ten to twelve hour time discrepancy between them.

Angela picks up her pen, runs the opposite end over her lips, and writes, tentatively: _Doctor?_

Why else would her soul-mate sleep at noon?

***

Angela catches her soul-mate most often when she sleeps at home, in her own bed, on regular hours and on occasion, whatever late night naps she sneaks at the hospital.

Emily remarks, once, “You slept? On your own? As in, you came to the realization you were tired and decided to lie down and sleep? On your own? _Of your own free will?_ ”

Angela rewards Emily’s snark with an eye-roll, but she’s not wrong. Sunlit streets and soft smiles await her when she sleeps and _oh_ , these days Angela _sleeps_ . Together, with her soul-mate ( _her_ soul-mate!) Angela sees dusty, sturdy structures in sandy tones, clearly aged, but their history lost on her without context. Once they wander the street’s length, down one way and then up the next, Angela’s soul-mate waits for her outside the old gate the next time she sleeps. They begin a new journey down past the vendors and their wares.

Tonight, at the hospital, it’s past four in the morning, and Angela expects a normal dream, maybe a poor one. Likely an average, soul-mateless one, which creep in more often now when she finds time to sleep on a shift.

Pager and phone aligned by the hospital-standard pillow, Angela adjusts a starched sheet once more and shuts eyes.

She’s thinking of patient stats and an encroaching vacation and _does the hotel have a pool_ and _probably_ and _oh I need new swimwear_ and _is that buy one get one half off yarn on until Thursday or Friday_ and she doesn’t expect to sleep at all, really. But one second she’s repositioning her arm under her pillow and chastising herself for trying to pull off a particular shade of yellow with her last bikini and then she’s out—

***

Angela stands in a hazy dream.

It is not a grey anxious nightmare or a loud crimson-stained one or a sunlit soul-mate dream.

Later, she’ll clock it as a normal, desire-driven dream. But asleep and unthinking it’s—

—it’s a bar—

—it’s a _hotel_ bar—

—A faceless man in grey pants and vest over a white shirt polishes a glass. Behind him is a wall of liquor glasses and taps, back-lit with lights. In front of him is a bar of dark wood, polished to shine and lined with bar stools—

—and a dim, golden haze lingers over it all; over Angela; over the barman; over the other guests—

—the other bar patrons are there, but not there; a cacophony of chatter buzzes in Angela’s ears and movement blurs just outside the range of her vision—

—Angela squints; the other patrons only possess noses and eyebrows and mouths when she looks at them and thinks about it—

—with the exception of the dark-haired figure at the other end of the bar, perched atop a stool, sleeves rolled up—

— _oh_ —

—her heart flutters high in her chest and she swallows, hard—

—Suddenly, quite suddenly, Angela is aware of herself, of her own body. She’s aware of her legs, bare to an inch above her knees and the bareness of her shoulders. She’s wearing a dress, a specific dress. One of her own: a black cocktail dress, the skirt a soft flare around her knees and the halter neck high—

—she’s not worn this dress in years, really, not even to charity galas the hospital puts on—

—it belongs to a different Angela, an Angela who left a long, long time ago—

—but she finds it fits her now; the skirt of the dress narrowing at her waist, a pair of black flats on her feet in complement to the outfit—

—because, at the end of the bar, sleeves rolled up to bear her forearms sits Angela’s dream woman, Angela’s _soul-mate_ —

— _and_ —

—there’s Angela’s heart again, fluttering away—

—her soul-mate’s in dark dress pants and a navy blue shirt, lightly tailored to fit, two darts the only concession to curves beneath. Heat washes through Angela, from the base of her throat to her thighs—

—there’s no fear here, in this dream, no hesitation; there is action and there is desire—

—Angela approaches. She reaches out a hand and trails her finger down the length of the bartop as she closes the distance—

—she is beside her now, beside her soul-mate, with her rolled-back sleeves and the golden light catching on the adornments in her hair. Angela leans in and guides the same wandering finger over her soul-mates bare arm; from the inside of her wrist to the folded edge of her sleeve—

—Golden beads swing with the motion of her head, and the woman glances up at her. She catches Angela’s eye; a smile breaks over her face—

—and—

—oh—

—here’s that wave of heat again, coating Angela’s senses, honing her focus on her soul-mate; on her bared arms, on the outline of her form beneath her shirt—

—Angela’s soul-mate rises. She lifts a hand to Angela’s face, fingertips curve over her ear, pushing any hair neatly aside. She leans in and whispers—

—it’s not a true whisper, or a true voice, but a voice in the way voices work in dreams: Angela’s ear tickles at the passing of her breath and she knows what the woman means—

— _Got us a room_ —

—Angela’s heart picks up a fresh beat. She needs not reply; she smiles up at her soul-mate and her soul-mate knows—

—They turn to leave and her soul-mate’s hand comes to rest in the small of Angela’s back—

—The dream is quickening now, skipping forward with Angela’s heartbeat—

—and they’re in the hotel room—

—Angela registers: a plush carpet, a numbed champagne glow from a single wall sconce, night sky and sea glittering out of a window to her left and on her right, a grand bed, coverlet pulled back to expose dark silk sheets glistening in the low light—

—and she’s kissing her soul-mate. They stand before the windows. Angela’s arms are up around her soul-mate’s neck, entangled in her dark hair, guiding her head down to her own hungry mouth. Her soul-mate’s threaded one hand through Angela’s hair and the other’s on Angela’s side, cradling her ribcage—

—oh—

—Angela’s at the buttons on her soul-mate’s shirt, swift and sure fingers working down the line between kisses—

—and her soul-mate returns the favour: back to her soul-mate, Angela catches glimpses of their outlined reflections in the windows. Fingers unzip and part the fabric over her back. Lips brush the crook of Angela’s neck. Her dress is free and a single finger trails down the length of her spine—

—again, the dream stutters forward—

—she lies in silken sheets, her soul-mate bent over her. She breaks a long, deep kiss and presses softer ones to the tender spot on Angela’s neck; along her collarbones. Every moment is heightened; every touches sings with an electric undercurrent of delight. Angela grips her soul-mate’s shoulders and hooks a leg over her hips and—

—Angela flips the script—

—she grins down at her baffled soul-mate. She’s on top now, blonde hair loose and tickling her soul-mate’s cheeks as she straddles her. Their hands are entwined, her soul-mate’s pinned gently to the pillow. Angela leans forward and bridges the space between them—

—lips brushing her soul-mates ear she whispers—

— _you_ _’ve done so much for me, it’s your turn now_ —

—she kisses her again, deep and pointedly. She grips her knees tight around soul-mate’s hips and—

—and—

***

Angela jerks back to reality.

Noise—incessant, aggravated, _perky_ noise—hammers into her eardrums.

She’s awake: painfully, rudely, cruelly awake.

Courtesy of her pager.

Jaw-clenching, she swats at it, and it clatters off the bunk and into the dark. Plastic cracks and the beeping stops. Someone below her murmurs, _“Hey_ ,” in a thick voice.

Right, top bunk.

Angela stretches, arms out and toes down. “Stupid pager.” A needy itch courses under her skin, hot and begging for relief. But the on-call room is the wrong place to scratch it. It’s the wrong place to dream hot, needy things in the first place.

She sits up and slides to the floor. Her bunkmate grumbles when her feet hit the linoleum, so she murmurs a quick “Sorry,” and goes off to the dark corner to grope for her pager.

 _Stupid pager. Stupid pager, stupid pager, stupid pager_ . How often does Angela ’s brain grant her a good dream? Not a normal one or, more rarely, a nice one, but a truly good dream, courtesy of her own neurons and grey matter? She pulls her phone out and casts the dim screen light along the wall and into the corner. _Stupid pager_.

It’s there, sitting in three pieces: body, battery cover and a battery. Angela scoops it up and pockets it, cursing it all the while.

Angela tugs her white coat back on and straightens her scrubs. Lifting a hand to check her hair, she corrects herself: _Stupid_ Angela _._

And it is stupid. Stupid of her brain to piece together a scene. Based on the scenery of their shared dreams, her soul-mate is very likely from a Middle Eastern country, and wouldn’t drink. The hotel bar angle? Moronic. Moronic and insensitive.

And her happy little rendezvous in the hotel room?

Hopeful, wishful stupidity.

Halfway out the door, Angela pauses.

 _Happy little rendezvous_.

Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it?

A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.

Something happy.

***

At some point, Angela’s third-wheeling vacation with Emily and Lena has turned from a distant foreign thing to plan about into an official countdown. She breaks the time between into chunks: after this shift she has twenty-four hours off, a seventy-two hours shift, another day off and then her final three-day shift. Three weeks of sun, city beaches and whatever the local art scene offers.

And at some point, Angela’s thoughts turn from “Is it socially acceptable to knit at the beach?” into something else.

Angela clears her throat. “Question,” she says, “How would, uh, someone—someone with a soul-mate—control the, um, destination in a dream?” She pulls her glasses off her nose, hooks them over her pocket, unhooks them and pushes them back on. “A soul-mate dream.”

Hospital halls stretch out on both sides. Angela’s dropped in on Emily’s last round of patient check-ins for the day, overlooking a handful of patients on the out-patient ward.

Emily’s marking a chart. “Asking a lot of questions about soul-mate dreams lately, Dr. Ziegler,” she lifts her head and fixes Angela with a squint. “Any chance you’ve got something to share?”

“I meant— they’re theoretical questions.”

“Uh-huh, sure.”

“Theoretical questions, about theoretical soul-mates.”

“If you’re certain.”

“From someone like you, who has experience. With a soul-mate. A non-theoretical soul-mate. And non-theoretical dreams.”

Emily scribbles her signature on the bottom of the tablet and clips the plastic pen at its side. “You want to clarify anything, Dr. Ziegler?”

Angela shoves her hands into her coat pockets until they’re wrist deep and pushing at the seams. “I was just thinking, you know, if I had a soul-mate—that’s _IF_ , Emily—it might be nice to share some of my experiences with her. Since, presumably, this vacation will produce some of them.” She looks pointedly away. “You know. Theoretically. If I had one.” She pauses. “If.”

“If?”

“If,” Angela insists.

Emily’s eyebrows are high and skeptical when Angela turns back. “Well,” she begins, “If you have—”

“Ever have.”

“—ever have a soul-mate, I guess you just, I don’t know, focus?” Emily finishes.

“ _Focus?_ ”

“Truth is, I don’t know.” Emily shrugs. “It’s never been a problem for me and my _non-theoretical_ soul-mate. It just... happens. She saw here as much as I saw London before, and now it’s mostly mutually-shared spaces.”

“Helpful.”

Emily continues, “But when I did have something to show her, I focused. Think of it like meditating, with a mantra.” She shut her eyes and sucked in an exaggerated deep breath. “I _will_ show my bed to my soul-mate tonight. I _will_ show _my_ _bed_ to my soul-mate _tonight_.”

“Theoretical soul-mate,” Angela corrects.

Emily fixes her with a _no-funny-business-now_ look: all narrowed eyes and squared shoulders. “Are we talking about theoretical soul-mates or actual soul-mates here, Ange?” she asks, voice surprisingly gentle.

Angela backs up two steps. “Thank you for your input, doctor.”

“Angela—”

“I’ll see you tomorro— Ow.” Her spine comes up against a door frame.

“Get back here—”

Angela smiles and lifts her hand in a broad final wave, and then ducks into the room and out of sight.

***

Angela really, truly wants to share some of her life with her new soul-mate. Her upcoming vacation is at the top of her list.

They’ve never visited any of Angela’s locales. Angela’s held hands with her soul-mate in markets and streets steeped in history, the years worn into the grooves between stones like dust. Always her soul-mates choice. Angela cannot complain—when someone carries places so rich in their blood, they want to show them off. All Angela has to offer in return are stark hospital walls and the blank canvas of her apartment.

What, exactly, is she supposed to offer in return?

 _Thank you for showing me what must be one of the most culturally relevant places in the history of humankind. Here_ _’s the apartment I’ve never decorated. On your right’s a drop of spilled nail polish. Tour’s over! Have a wonderful day!_

Angela stares down at the list of possible locations in her journal. She’s pre-emptively axed her apartment for now, along with the hospital. Who wants to see a hospital? Most people avoid hospitals. At best, hospitals offer healing. At worst, dead loved ones and test results they never hoped to hear. Even then, at its best, healing went hand-in-hand with hurt. The threshold between unwell and better was a hard boundary of pain and vulnerability. Not everyone reached the other side.

Chewing the end of her pen, Angela decides: her favourite craft store. It is small, the focus on fabric and string based crafts. In the back corner, two entire walls of yarn selections meet. A bin nearby holds over-sized balls of specialty yarn, a novelty item for novelty blankets. No other place in her waking world holds as much colour as her soul-mates dreams.

Angela’s got on what she considers her comfiest pyjamas: a thin, over-sized cotton shirt and shorts with a tie at the waist. Her co-conspirator for her test run is a bottle of Merlot. She finds its moral support more than sufficient.

A few more sips and teeth marks in the end of her pen and she’s picked out a mantra: Tonight, my soul-mate comes to me.

More purposeful than _yarn store yarn store yarn store yarn store_ , in Angela’s opinion.

She sips Merlot and scrawls it down in her journal, once and then another, and another. She writes it twenty times. Her hand aches—one of her surgeries ran long today. Is this how miscreants at school felt when teachers punished them with lines? Angela never wound up in much trouble. During times a teacher punished the whole class, they usually found an excuse to send quiet, smart, good-natured Angela off on some errand. Especially after her parent’s death.

Angela shuts her journal and sets it aside. She stands, stretches and massages her hands, focusing on a particular ache by her index finger’s knuckle. She tucks her Merlot to bed in the kitchen and then tucks herself into bed.

In her head, she caresses her mantra: Tonight, my soul-mate comes to me.

_Tonight, my soul-mate comes to me._

_Tonight, my soul-mate comes to me._

_Tonight_ _—_

***

Tonight, a red nightmare cold-cocks Angela.

Tonight she is in a stifling plastic tent, incendiaries beating hot light outside the walls, and everyone she’s ever loved is on her table.

Tonight is nightmare variety number two: the stench of charred flesh and blood in her airways, the ground rolling with explosions under her feet, the bodies more ruined flesh than human being—

—and a diluted red light coats everything in sight—

—and a nurse hovers over her shoulder—

—Angela’s lungs seize tight—

—these are old words, words she’s known since a child, words ready to rip and tear—

“—Angela, sweetheart, there’s been an accident— ”

—super-imposed over—

“—Doctor, two car crash victims, incoming!— ”

—always the same patients—

—always—

—always—

—always—

—always her father, first—

—his face is calm, even regal in its composure—

—but it’s a grey face, a lost face—

—and black bruises mottle his chest—

—and his gut is split open and black blood congeals at the edges—

—and Angela’s hollering for someone to start fluids through a sob-choked throat—

—and she’s ready to intubate, the plastic line shaking in her hands; she’s prepared to snake it down the cold meat of her father’s trachea—

—and two impulses, two separate Angelas tug at her—

—the combat medic urging her _He_ _’s already dead, move on, move on_ —

—and the hospital surgeon reminding her _You try everything, so when you tell the family you_ _’ve tried everything_ —

—and the tube’s hanging out of his mouth now, connected to nothing—

—so she threads a needle, and she tries to stitch—

—stitch the pieces back together—

—and his skin refuses to yield; Angela grits her teeth and pushes the needle—

—and it’s as though she’s sewing mats of rubber together; thick and unyielding, their forms resolutely set—

—and outside the tent, thunder crashes—

—and Angela knows it’s not thunder, not really—

—as a child, she based her assumptions off movies and television, but as an adult, she’s heard the sound; felt it—

—a car crash is all the roar and violence of thunder, but it reverberates through bystanders, shudders right down the length of your spine—

—Angela gasps as it rolls through her—

—and her father’s gone now there’s no saving him, no more work she can do—

—and now before her is her mother, and—

—outside the tent, lightning flickers across the sky and the horrible crash plays over and over—

—a voice so close hot breath blasts the side of her face hollers, “You’re the only one who can help her, Doctor Ziegler!”—

—and staring down at her mother’s body, memories surface; memories carved into a younger Angela’s tender brain—

—in fragments, she hears:—

“—T-boned at the intersection—”

“— the side of impact—”

—and in her memories she’s small and vulnerable with grief; adults pat her hair, her shoulder—

—and they murmur soft things to her, kind things—

— _It was over quickly, sweetie_ —

— _They_ _’re at peace now, Angela_ —

— _No more pain, no more suffering_ —

— _take good care of you_ —

—but they say nothing about why her father’s casket is open, showing off his waxy dead face and why her mother’s face is shut and hidden behind the casket’s lid—

—and now, Angela cannot move at all—

—and she’s staring down at what’s left of her mother, bile rising in her throat, needle gripped to the point of pain in her fingers—

“—Do something, doctor!—”

“—Doctor Ziegler, you need to act now!—”

—Angela palms a scalpel, looks down and away from her mother—

—and her own breath rattles in her lungs and the heat seeps into her skin and the voices holler into her ears—

—Angela grips the scalpel, looks down and plunges it into her own thigh—

—she gasps; electric pain surges through her—

—and they’re yelling again, yelling—

“—Angela, this is your last chance!—”

—and she looks up and it’s another familiar face: dark hair, kind eyes, golden beads—

—Angela’s looking down at her soul-mate’s body, at a body she longs to learn, and it is mutilated by the course of war—

—shrapnel ravages a line from her shoulder to her opposite hip, bisecting her body with metal; crimson seeps through her plain tank top where it pierces through to her skin—

—she meets Angela’s eyes—

—and now she’s thrashing on the table, calling out, begging—

—there are no words in shared dreams, but her meaning suffuses Angela—

—she wants her mother—

—and as Angela stares, she flickers—

—once—

—twice—

—and her soul-mate’s in her usual blue Henley, body intact—

Her soul-mate sits herself up, both hands stretched behind her. She glances down at herself and sucks in a deep breath. Shifting, she offers a hand out to Angela. Skies of blue and sandy stones flicker at the edge of Angela’s vision.

Outside the tent, noise fades to silence. Beneath her feet, the ground stills. Lucidity drenches her, crisp and clear as an overturned bucket of cold water.

_This is a soul-mate dream._

_This is a shared dream._

_This is my doing_ _—_

—and chaos crashes back—

—familiar brown eyes lose focus—

—her mouth opens in a scream—

—and the hand outstretched to Angela is a bloody stump—

***

As if her brain is a puppet and someone’s tugged the string, Angela jerks awake and sucks down a gulp of air. Sweat slicks her body, from head to toe, and loose hair clings to her face. She’s fisted handfuls of sheets in her sleep and drawn them close to her chest.

And she cannot breathe.

Hands clawed and shaking, she tears sheets away from herself. Darkness hangs over her room, the only familiarity in the outlines of her bedroom, traced with yellow streetlight. Angela frees herself, crawls to the edge of the bed and throws herself to the floor.

Cold wood meets her sweaty palms. Angela’s mouth is open and she’s sucking at the air, but her chest is squeezing in on her lungs, on her heart and _she can_ _’t breathe—_

In the dark of her room, on the chilled varnished floor, the only arms Angela has to wrap around her are her own.

So she does.

 _Breathe_ , she commands her body. _Breathe, dammit._

_Breathe._

_Breathe._

Breath returns to her, five or ten or twenty minutes later and the vise on her chest eases up. Something heavy rises in Angela’s throat in its place; she leans forward until her forehead brushes the floor and parts her lips in a sob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've made a Twitter account since I last updated!: [@fourthsecond](https://twitter.com/fourthsecond)


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